private THE MASCARA TEARS FROM YOUR GETAWAY \ birth

[REDFLOWER]

cw ; childbirth and descriptions of starvation

The Redflower who'd left ThunderClan had been plump on forest prey; her pelt had been shiny, swirls of scarlet fighting rich pools of ebony and white; her steps had been swift, sure, her eyes gleaming with the pride of knowing her place, of knowing she was loved and cared for.

That Redflower is gone.

The moons have eaten her alive. She is thin, but for a nastily protruding stomach that swells and pains her with every bloated step. Her breath is sour with malnutrition; any cat who has dared approach her since she'd been chased from the forest has been met with violence. It had not always gone her way — wounds, old and new, litter her tricolored pelt, which is dull with dust and exhaustion.

She exists, now, out of spite. Every new day she awakens and heaves herself to her paws on splintering claws and she whispers, "I will live." Flamestar wanted her to die; Raccoonstripe, Palefire, all of them — they wanted her to cease to be their problem, to go out like an ill-tended flame, to take Skyclaw's progeny with her.

She refuses. Every scrap of prey she's managed to come across, to steal, to plead for, to borrow, she's used it to feed the kits in her belly. Every spilled Twoleg trash she's plundered, every bird's nest she's raided, every kitten's mewling jaws she'd pulled meat from — it had been for their survival. A part of Skyclaw still lingered in this forest, and it was her duty, her duty, to ensure they did not perish before tasting Flamestar's blood.

Redflower's mind is dull with pain by the time she reaches her makeshift nest in the hollow of an old burrow. She collapses onto her side, panting, dry-mouthed. Fear twists inside of her, but she suppresses it. I deserve to have Gentlestorm giving me herbs. I deserve to have Skyclaw nestled beside me. I deserve to have a comfortable, safe den in ThunderClan's camp. I —

She hisses, pulling herself upright by her claws. The pain in her middle is almost unbearable, and there is no one here to tell her if it is normal or if something has gone awry. The smell of blood is on the air — is it too much, she wonders? Her head swims, dizzy, but she persists. She must.

The sun has dipped below the treeline before the first of them is born. She enters the world in silence, her pelt black as night, thick and spiked in places. Redflower licks her out of blind instinct, willing her to make a noise — but as long as she breathes, as long as she lives, then it has not all been for nothing. "Speak," she commands the firstborn, hoarse, but she is soon distracted by the second wave of agony, the second pulsing about her middle.

This kit comes in a wash of pain and gritted teeth, but she comes, wearing her mother's red-splashed dark pelt. She lives, she thrives, mewling her indignation into the stuffy burrow Redflower calls home.

It is several long moments before the queen can tend to her daughters. She does not linger over them for long — her body is fighting for survival, and she knows she must rest while she can, that all of their lives now depend on it.

She noses the black-coated kitten and mutters, "Scarkit." ThunderClan is a festering wound without Skyclaw and his salvation, but it will be this kit's destiny to heal it, to leave it in a better place than her father had been forced to leave it. You are the wound in my heart that refuses to heal, and you will carry that scar with you until the day you die.

The second kit receives a brief touch of her muzzle. "Rosekit." This kit will be beautiful, like she'd been, she can tell — but beauty without an edge is nothing at all, and Redflower knows her secondborn will be calculating and fierce, her father's daughter.

The moon spills, full and soft, into the mouth of their den. Redflower focuses on its glow as she's lulled to sleep.

『 out of character. 』 ✧･ﾟ:* 『 about. 』

• ooc: —
• 
• Redkit . Redpaw . Redflower, she/her w/ feminine terms.
  — "speech", thoughts, attack
  — 17 moons old, ages realistically on the 15th.
  — mentored by NPC ; mentoring n/a ; previously mentored n/a
  — exiled rogue; formerly a thunderclan warrior. npc x npc, gen 1.
  — formerly mated to skyclaw.
  — penned by Marquette.
  
  
  lh tortoiseshell with low white and pale yellow eyes. bright, spiteful, impressionable.

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[Rosekit ❀]

.·:*¨༺ ❀ ༻¨*:·.
Her introduction to the world is cold and harsh, an experience the newborn would be thankful to forget once she gained sentience. It is not the cozy, ThunderClan nursery the writhing ball of coal and ember is brought into, in place of the sweet scent of milk and freshly-made moss, it is something stale that forces itself into the she-kits nose.

When she feels something solid beneath her, she instantly begins to wriggle towards the only source of warmth her barely-developed senses can find, latching to her mother with an eager clamp of baby-round pearls.

Rosekit, the kitten is deemed while she suckles obliviously, hungrily. The thing next to her is hardly registered as more than a thing to squirm weakly against, swiftly perceived as something akin to a threat for the deaf and blind bundle of feathered fur and the infinite supply of food and warmth. Her food and warmth.

‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎┌── CAN'T SEE THE KNIFE WHEN ⋅ ✰ ⋅ YOU'RE TOO CLOSE ──┐‎

• 

• 
  ROSEKIT ♥ she/they, loner-born kit, 0 moons.
  ⭃ dark, silky furred tortoiseshell she-kit with brown sugar hues.
  ⭃ Redflower xx Skyclaw ⤔ sibling to Scarkit
  ⭃ peaceful and healing powerplay permitted / / underline and tag when attacking
  ⭃ penned by Noor ↛ @toyangel on discord, feel free to dm for plots.

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[SCARKIT]

Awareness is a small thing. Low, like smoldering coals; a tiny light sparked in pervasive dark. An unheard voice above her wills her into action, but the newborn does little else than lay there voicelessly. It's cold, and unfamiliar, and strange, and being alive is no easy feat. That little flame flickers, weak.

Scarkit does not speak when told. She is voiceless when Redflower commands response. She is voiceless when Rosekit squirms beside her. She wriggles closer to the present warmth of her mother, and she is voiceless when Rosekit buffers against her, too.

Scarkit is just a spark. A smear of orange in the night, hardly enough to pierce through the shadows. Against the writhing form of her sister, she reaches out one half-curled paw to brush against Redflower's knotted fur—seeking the bare vestiges of comfort without the will to fight for it. It'll take a miracle to fuel flame into a fire. For now, she manages merely to live.
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